Rafferty: Why don't we care about Texas tragedy?

Published 6:46 pm, Friday, May 3, 2013

A bomb went off in America the other day, and the bomber is still on the loose. Fifteen people were killed and more than 200 injured in this typical American small town, among them several first responders who heroically rushed in to save civilians. The blast created a 93-foot-wide crater and the resulting shock wave and fires destroyed an apartment complex, wrecked 80 other homes and severely damaged a nearby nursing home and local schools. According to the evidence, the bomber evidently was well aware of the proximity of his bomb to the schools and residences, and went to great lengths to hide his plot from Homeland Security.

The composition of the bomb was well known to authorities: fertilizer and ammonium nitrate, ingredients typically used by terrorists both domestic and international. Federal agencies even had the bomber in its sights in 2005, as a routine check turned up large amounts of bomb materials, but the suspect was let off with a modest fine and never recontacted by the authorities. Authorities say they know the identity of the bomber, but at this time are not inclined to pursue him. There is growing suspicion that state authorities may have been aware of the bomber and the threat several years ago, but through a combination of gross negligence and an unrivaled lack of oversight, they chose to ignore the threat. During his news conference, President Barack Obama fielded multiple questions from reporters asking about bringing the bomber to justice, preventing such bombings in the future and investigating the state and federal officials who allowed this to happen.

OK, so I made that last line up. Unfortunately, everything that comes before it is true. The town of West, Texas, effectively no longer exists, following the explosion at a fertilizer plant. A plant where more than 270 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate was illegally stored. The legal limit for on-site storage is 400 pounds, and even using Everyday Math, my kids know 270 tons is way more than 400 pounds, but Texans don't like government on their backs, so they willfully left Homeland out of the loop. For comparison purposes, not-at-all-Muslim terrorist Timmy McVeigh used 2 tons of the stuff in the Oklahoma City bombing. But for the moment there is no media frenzy or manhunt for company owner Donald Adair.

You see, Adair's company is in Texas, where men are men, and the governor will tell you, "We don't need no stinking regulations."

Mr. Adair knows this, which is why he lied to the feds and the Environmental Protection Agency about not having any fire or explosion risks at the factory, but was very comfortable telling local safety agencies about his bomb materials because in Texas, they do not care. So in addition to the blast itself, local fire departments were unaware of what was burning inside the building and bravely rushed in, attacking the fire with water (big mistake) and they died.

So why do we not care about this? Why do we care more about Boston? Yes, terrorism is scary, but in 2011 you were 270 times more likely to die in a workplace accident than a terrorist attack, yet the budget for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is 1.1 percent of the Homeland Security budget. Over the past 30 years, the number of people who have died in terrorist attacks in the U.S. is less than one-half of 1 percent of the number of people who have died from gun violence, yet we freak out on the idiot Tsarnaev brothers while contorting ourselves to make Newtown about the mental health of Adam Lanza and not about the guns.

But Texas, sweet Texas. Ranking member of the right-wing Axis of Evil states where deregulation, right-to-work and low tax/low service government equals pro-business at the expense of, you know, your average "real" Americans. And while they might be wandering in the wilderness, listen closely to some of the Greenwich delegation and other state Republicans in Hartford who would like to see Gov. Dannel P. Malloy become more like governors Scott Walker (Wisconsin), Rick Scott (Florida), Chris Christie (New Jersey) or Rick Perry (Texas), who see the devastation in West, Texas as just the price of doing business in the wonderful, wild, wild west of American capitalism.